


Spntober OneShots

by motelsamndean (whalesandfails)



Series: Spntober Fics [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-01
Updated: 2019-10-23
Packaged: 2020-11-27 03:02:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 6,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20941208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whalesandfails/pseuds/motelsamndean
Summary: Small drabbles from every day in October, mostly revolving around weecest, but also gen and wincest sprinkled in. :)





	1. Prompt October 1: Ring

Sam slid their mother’s ring from Dean’s limp hand, unmarred and contrasting against the red ribbons that his chest had been shredded into. He cut the samulet from its cord with Ruby’s knife. Two talismans that were the epitome of Dean; they looked small in his palm. Like nothing. 

They buried Dean without salt and without flame and Sam swore he would unearth his brother if it killed him. Swore he would say the things that had rested on the tip of his tongue for years. He slid the ring onto his middle finger and cast his wordless vows into the night. No ceremony, no grave marker, it was up to Sam and Sam alone to remember Dean and what he promised. 

The amulet weighed heavy around his neck as he descended into otherness, into monstrousness. But the ring kept his hand light and efficient, a balance to his mental scythe, a beacon that never glowed green, but was a driving force all the same. 

\--

When Dean came back, Sam handed over the samulet, but Dean didn’t ask for their mother’s ring, and so Sam kept it – hidden, secret. Vows he had kept and vows he had yet to fulfill and vows he had failed, a heated metal reminder of everything he couldn’t tell his beautiful brother. 

\--

“Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter--tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther.... And one fine morning-- So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.” – F. Scott Fitzgerald


	2. Prompt October 2: Mindless

Dean felt the teeth retract back into his mouth and the blood slide down his throat. He loomed over Sam, who was – thank fucking god – alive, but bleeding. His eyes were wide and he clutched a hand to his throat as it pulsed blood.

Dean thought the connection between blood and memory was fiction, something made up to romanticize vampires and form a bond between hunter and prey. But that obviously wasn’t the case. But the blood turned sour in Dean’s mouth. 

“What are you?” He shouted, fisting his hands in Sam’s flannel. His jostling dislodged Sam’s hand for a moment, and blood bubbled up out of the gaping wound. He thought maybe all the myths were true, and licked a bold stripe of saliva up Sam’s lean neck. He wasn’t as mindless as when he first drank from his brother – the conversion was complete. He felt like himself, with only an aching in his gums and a hunger in his gut. He ignored the way Sam canted his hips up from the attention at his neck. He ignored the familiarity of Sam’s body beneath his and how he still wanted to latch onto that neck but in an entirely different way. 

Because it wasn’t Sam. Well, not entirely. The memories Dean had guzzled down in his chaotic fervor were all there, but they fell flat. Like a 3-D movie without the glasses. Like seen through an aquarium window. 

Dean shook Sam again trying to get him to answer. He watched the wound at his brother’s neck knit closed, saw the few moles reappear that he had mauled with his serrated teeth.  
“I have no soul Dean,” Sam whispered. His voice was all heat and no malice, was sending fire licking down his spine as the words sunk in and the sensation was followed with a cool chill. “I have no soul and now…. Now, neither do you.”


	3. Prompt October 3: Bait

“But Dean,” Sam said, “is it really so terrible?” He was sprawled on the couch and his teenage limbs were disjointed and awkward. He had never looked more beautiful. Or more forbidden. There was a danger in his eyes that tickled Dean’s senses, like his brother was playing a game of chicken he desperately wanted to win. His tongue was sticky against the roof of his mouth but he said to himself: yes, it is – it’s the most terrible thing you could ever do. 

\--

“All it would be is one kiss, Dean. Are you scared?” He couldn’t see the arch of eyebrow underneath of Sam’s mop of hair, but Dean knew it was there. Recognized the taunt and recognized the way Sam’s tongue could say sweet sinful things. He stared at his brother’s mouth for a long, long moment before turning away. 

\--

“I’ve wanted you forever, De. Let me. Just let me.” Sam was pawing at Dean’s shirt, at his buttons, at his fly. Sam’s fingers were trembling and Dean didn’t know if it was excitement or fear. He couldn’t reach his hands up to stop Sam’s ministrations, knew that as soon as he touched back he was done for. Instead pressed his eyes closed tight and stood up abrubtly, Sam sprawled onto the floor and Dean couldn’t understand the expression on his brother’s face. He didn’t see a trace of Sam in it at all. 

\--

“Touch me again and I’ll kill you.” Dean stood there in shock, watched as Sam packed a bag with lips smeared red in agitation, blood rising to the skin where they had been pressed and teethed at. He swore Sam kissed back, swore he felt his brother melt into his touch, swore his name was on the tip of his tongue before he swallowed it down. Sam had said the words (for the hundredth, for the thousandth time), but Dean made the first move. And he realized he never was supposed to; or maybe he was. Sam was laying a trap, and Dean walked right into it, and now Sam was walking right out. The school letter Sam grasped was crumpled and creased with age and a life on the road – he’d known, he’d known for a while. He just needed a reason to leave.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Psst: read the first line of each paragraph for the prompt ;))


	4. Prompt October 4: Freeze

Sam’s jittery knee was shaking the whole car, and as much he could see Dean wanted to tell him to stop, it was better than quaking hands. And Sam remembered how devastating that had been on his first hunt, Dean still had the scars on his right forearm to prove it. 

Sam’s nerves were different from Dean’s – for they were different boys. Dean worried about Dad, about civvies. But Sam; he just worried about Dean. He wasn’t sure if being there while they buckshot swamp monsters was better than waiting at the motel for them to come home. Here, caught up in the moment, if Dean fell… Sam’s knee vibrated. There would be blame, now. He wanted nothing more than to keep Dean safe. 

Sam knew that was illogical. Dean had been doing this for years and Dad for a decade more on top of that; Sam’s presence wouldn’t change the world. Wouldn’t change a thing. But he looked at his brother’s princess pout and freckled face and only saw innocence. Dean was four years older and Sam still wanted to save him from everything. 

Dean was smart – yes. But he was also arrogant and naïve and lonely. And Sam hated it. He was younger than Dean was when he started hunting, but he couldn’t be left alone at the motel for a single day more. Couldn’t not know every second if he was making it worse or making it better or not doing a thing at all. Because really, he’d save Dean from anything. Even himself. 

He got out of the car with the shotgun in his hands and salt pellets jammed deep down its throat. His hands on the weapon were still. His knees didn’t knock together.   
Dean looked him in the eyes for a quick moment before descending into the dim warehouse. “Don’t freeze.” Sam knew he wouldn’t.


	5. Prompt October 5: Build

The first thing Sam did was put his three books on top of the nightstand, this month he had: Helter Skelter by Vincent Bugliosi, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, and his ever-present copy of the Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien. Although only one of them had been in the backseat of his car, in his backpack, across America, in his jacket pocket - they were all in equal states of disrepair. He stood them up between the motel lamp and the digital clock, a small library of sadness and exploration. Dean’s pack of cigarettes immediately settled on top of the books, and his gun and knives thrown next to them. Their duffels stayed packed, one per chair in the corner of the room next to the table that was supposed to fit an adult man and his two sons. 

Two weeks later, their clothes were filthy and the duffels stank. Dean offered to run and do laundry and hauled the mishmash of flannel and band tees into a pillowcase and retreated out to find a laundromat in town. When he returned, the empty duffels were put on a hook near the door, and their miniscule wardrobes were each shoved into a drawer of the dresser that held he television that gave off no more than static. The books had been relegated to the bottom shelf of the nightstand, and had multiplied, with stickers for the local library adorning their spines. The tabletop held a scattered smear of school notes and mechanic booklets, on top of and underneath of three plates stolen from the diner they could no longer frequent. The camp stove with their single pot rested on the ground in the corner, and dish soap stood next to face soap in the washroom. Wood shavings had wormed their way between the fibers of the carpeting, and a half-finished something sat next to Dean’s boots. 

Three weeks after that, and the boys were peeling magazine cutouts from the walls and Sam was figuring out which books to steal and which to return. The garbage pail was overflowing with school notes and Dean had slipped out to quietly return the plates and cutlery they had pilfered. The bags were packed and Baby idled outside. The only sign that they had been here, had built a home here, was the tape residue on the walls and a ratty pair of boxers with gun grease under the dresser. Sam thought maybe next time the first thing he’d take out of the duffel and set up would be the small carved bigfoot Dean had whittled away in the month and a week they had spent at the motel. Yeah, Sam thought, that’ll be a good start.


	6. Prompt October 6: Husky

Dean's voice was husky when he asked "d'you like that, Sammy?" 

Sam was watching the blood pool in his brother's navel. The thin line from right below Dean's pecs down between the expanse of his muscles stomach was crimson and it looked almost fake in its viscosity and sheen and vivid red luminosity. Sam couldn't believe he had his brother under him and bleeding. And willing. He could only nod. 

"Want to make another?" 

Sam shook his head no, one cut was enough. He dipped his pointer finger into Dean's bellybutton, smeared it outwards in a spiral across the planes of his stomach. He settled lower on Dean's hips, knees splayed wide. Sam lay his palm flat against Dean and his brother hitched in his breath. He pulled it away to look at the bloody spiral on his palm.   
Sam didn't know much about witchcraft, but this sure as fuck felt like a spell. His brain was hazy with lust and want and Dean. He didn't know where to go from here, so lay flat on Dean's chest and tried not to cry. 

Dean's strong arms wrapped around Sam, and he murmured sweet nothings into his ear in a voice raspy with desire and untameable emotion. Sam could feel the blood seeping into his shirt, a dampness between their pressed bodies that was both familiar and foreign. 

Sam blinked away his tears. God, why the fuck was he crying? He was overwhelmed. Dean had laid there while Sam brandished a knife over him, hadn't so much as sucked in a breath when Sam slid blade into skin. The trust was appalling, was too much. He could feel Dean's damp warm blood on his skin - his chest, his hand. He wanted to feel the slickness on his lips. He wanted to stitch his brother up and never do this again. He wanted a hell of a lot of things. He wanted Dean. 

He shook in his brother's arms, and Sam was grateful for the cage. Maybe this was the spell. Maybe this was the enchantment. He needed something - someone... Dean - to contain him. He wanted them to be bound forever.


	7. Prompt October 7: Enchanted

"Come back, Sammy." Dean pleaded, "come back to the monsters and the magic."

"Enchant me, then." Sam answered. 

Dean licked his way into his brother's mouth and his tongue tingled from the sensation. Like a memory of a feeling made flesh. He ran it over Sam's teeth and into the corner at the junction of his lips. He could carve totems from the harsh pillars of bone, cut himself and bleed dry on their pinnacles, push Sam's smile up with a tender brush of fingers and thumbs. He ached from the pain of it. The harsh memories and rumbling want. He pulled back to stare his brother in the eyes. 

"Do you remember?" Dean asked. 

Sam shrugged, feigned nonchalance wasted as he pulled Dean back in. Their breath mingled and crystallized in the icy air. 

"Couldn't forget." Sam whispered, foreheads pressed together. Sometimes he wished they were twins, that they didn't even have those nine months of existence apart. That Dean didn't have years without him before he even knew Sam would exist. It was different now, these years separated. An awareness even with miles and miles between them.   
Sam could tell Dean wanted to ask something else and bumped their noses together to prompt him. 

"And Jess?" 

"No." Sam said. And pulled away. The cool air rushed into the gap between their bodies, and Dean retreated further to wrap his coat tighter around his lean torso. It was two words and a million questions, and the answer to all of them was no. Sam didn't owe him all of himself anymore, didn't owe him answers, didn't owe him Jess.


	8. Prompt October 8: Frail

The wound hurt. There had been so many, but each time was like a sharp stab of both memory and novelty. No slash or claw or bite ever felt the same. His body was a story all its own, carvings into an old cave wall, illuminated by firelight, telling tales of monsters and beasts. He knew Sam would have spent his whole life trying to untangle the tales, nose pressed tight into history books if only he knew where to find them. But no anthologies existed, no telling quests, Dean’s body was a mystery to everyone but himself. Scars like secrets from Sam as a revenge for all the years he hunted alone. 

So when he woke up with a mouthful of dirt and his lighter illuminating the small pine box and gathering that he was six feet under, he was okay. When he stole and bargained his way through four states, he was okay. When he finally shucked his shirt to look at his wounds, he was not okay. His stories, his maps, his mistakes – all gone. He almost felt frail. A wisp of himself. The muscle was there, was defined and stark, but the markings were gone. 

Dean threw himself into fights; into saving souls and trying not to think of all those he tortured, into avoiding Sam’s gaze and his lips stained crimson and bloody, into chaotic foolishness that painted his skin violent red then pink than healed white. And bit by bit, his strength returned. But he had lost a part of himself in Hell, a piece of his soul, a piece of his body. He didn’t blame Cas, or Sam, or Dad – but the part of Dean that was twenty-nine and cocky and secretive and safe didn’t return. And his bones ached and his eyes creased and he still felt like he’d never reach thirty, even as his skin mottled with new scars and he aged, miserably, slowly - he had died, long ago, and not a thing would make it right.


	9. Prompt October 16: Wild

Dean could feel the curse slowly working its way under his skin. An animalistic thrum so harsh he could feel his bones in his body, could hear his blood rushing through his veins, couldn’t swallow the saliva pooling on his tongue. He wanted nothing more than to howl at the moon. To claim his brother. 

Sam just stared. Dean still looked like himself, but his fingers were getting longer and his nails curving into claws, his teeth already so sharp while human just stretched and crowded his mouth, fine ivory points digging into his plush lips. His ears sprouted hair and peaked, swiveled as Sam sucked in a breath, focusing on the sound. His whole body was focused on Sam – scent, sound, sight. Dean wanted to taste. Sam didn’t protest, knew that there was no cure for this, knew he’d do anything to stay by Dean’s side. He kept his gaze locked on his brother, and began unbuttoning his flannel. He pulled it off one shoulder, skin vibrant against the black night, an offering. 

The bite hurt, but Sam ground his teeth and tried not to scream. Couldn’t get past the sensation of Dean’s lips on his skin. 

Dean felt animalistic, wild. Sam was his property, and as his teeth dug deeper into Sam’s shoulder he didn’t know if he could ever let go. Wanted this feral surge in his blood running through Sam’s body, wanted to claw long, lean scrapes down Sam’s body, the way a pack marks trees. Wanted to hold Sam down and take and take and take. He pulled back, mouth red and gleaming in the moonlight – Sam smiled, teeth already sharpening, eyes already glowing, trouble already brewing.


	10. Prompt October 17: Ornament

Sam looked beautiful hanging from the ceiling. Ropes dug into his thighs, his stomach. His arms were bound behind him, crossed over his back, fingertips in his hair. He was suspended at a ninety degree angle, head brushing the rafters, knees bent but separated, legs apart at different angles, like he was running in the air. Or falling. 

But he wasn’t falling, this he knew. Dean’s knots hadn’t failed since he was a child, and although Sam’s body was large and the beams of the house creaked against his weight, Sam didn’t bring the whole building down. He was breathing hard, but not from the knotwork, the lattices across his chest and soft stomach making sure that his weight was distributed evenly. How could Dean fail high school science and still have such a good grasp on physics? Sam thought of all the other ways Dean was smart, met his brother’s cool gaze where he was watching him from a chair, observing his handiwork. 

The rope was intricately tied, with small markings like sigils scattered across his body in twine, spells and rituals only the boys could understand. Sam looked luminous – the new bright red ropes bringing out his tan skin and flushed face beautifully. Dean snapped a few photos with the instant cameras, shook them to make sure they showed Sam’s suspension well before setting them aside. Sam made a beautiful wall-hanging, like an ornament, like a piece of art. But Dean could see the colour leaving his brother’s toes, and the way the rope was chaffing a little around his neck, and with a groan of resignation he reached out to untie Sam.


	11. Prompt October 18: Misfit

When the girls started looking at Sam, so did Dean. As heroin chic hit mainstream in the late nineties, Sam’s style became the thing to trail after with doe eyes, no longer a misfit in the halls. His thin body was covered in baggy jeans and band tees – all from salvation and surplus stores, it wasn’t like Sam could find anything in his size anyways, too rail thin and tall. The bags under his eyes from waiting up for Dad and Dean suddenly on trend, and all Dean wanted to do was run his fingers lightly over them to feel the veins and the soft, fragile skin. His greasy hair was from running out of miniature shampoo bottles, if the motel even had them at all. Sam didn’t try at all, and the girls thought that was all part of the look: nose buried into books, scrunched nose and confused eyes at any girlish attention, army jacket with patches from all the places they’d been.   
Needless to say, the girls went wild. And Dean couldn’t stand it. 

Dean tried to convince himself that the way he looked at his brother was purely analytical, when it was anything but. He found himself staring at Sam’s shoulders as he hunched over homework, the way his muscles would move under the thin black cotton of his Zep tee. Even in this dingy kitchen, linoleum worn to a faded grey and metal table swiped from someone’s backyard a few miles over, Sam looked worn in and brand new, he contradicted Dean’s senses. He didn’t know how to stop this, he’d never said no to Sam in his life, and it didn’t seem to matter that Sam hadn’t even asked something of him. He swallowed audibly, and Sam turned in the chair. His gaze felt cool today, eyes more sea-grey than golden. His hair was dark with grease, and his pencil was gripped tight between bony fingers. Dean didn’t know how to look away. 

Something in his gaze must have confused his brother, because he asked “Dean?” in a tone that was normally reserved for when he held firecrackers or weed with a hell-raising grin. 

“Wanna make out?” Dean blurted, he scowled at himself, but quickly shuttered his expression, what the fuck? And Sam scoffed and returned to his homework. Dean stared at his long column of neck, counted five vertebrae, like the five stages of grief as his image of baby brother shattered for good. Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression….  
Acceptance. 

He wanted to know what Sam’s chapped lips tasted like. Wooden – from gnawing at his pencil as he studied? Cherry coke? 

He tried again. 

“The girls in this town like you, want to give me some pointers?” And although Sam didn’t turn around again his pencil stopped moving across the paper, and when Dean sauntered forward a few steps he saw Sam’s sidelong glance in his direction. He knew Sam’s gears were working, trying to guess at Dean’s game. He just blinked slowly, and settled his gaze back on notetaking.

Fine. Tactic number three. He strode up to the small table and swept Sam’s notes onto the floor in one smooth motion, papers fluttering across linoleum and underneath of his work boots. He stomped on a few for good measure. The scrape of the chair on plastic flooring was all the warning Dean got before Sam was in his space, the shove to his shoulder was half playful and half irritated. Dean pushed back, and Sam’s socks slid on the floor and he almost stumbled back into the table, but Dean caught him with a fistful of tee, hauled him back to his feet, but kept Sam in his grip. 

Sam brought both of his hands around Dean’s, tried to disentangle the fabric of his tee from his brother’s firm hands. Dean noticed how cold they were, how strong and angular.   
“What, Dean?” Sam asked, and it was caustic. And it burned. And Dean wanted that fire on his tongue. He hauled Sam closer, he didn’t know how much longer he could manhandle him like this. Wanted to do it forever. 

He bumped Sam’s nose with his own – a warning, an invitation. But he leaned in before Sam could interpret it. He brushed a chaste kiss to Sam’s mouth first, and it was warm and sweet. But he wanted to know if he could feel how chapped Sam’s lips were, if he could taste the whiteness of his teeth, if he could map Sam from the inside out with only his tongue. He pushed his way in, and Sam’s grip on his hands relaxed, then held tighter. He breathed out, a huff of a breath that was so Sam Dean almost pulled back to cry. But he had wormed his way into the moist expanse of his brother’s mouth, and he didn’t ever want to leave. He pulled Sam’s lower lip between his teeth and … Yes, cherry coke. 

And that, that was the overwhelming tipping point, the tide that pulled Dean back from Sam’s mouth. He blinked a few times, but his vision was blurred, he couldn’t see anything except shapes and blinding light. Sam slowly came back into focus, and his mouth was pink and Dean’s hands were tight in his shirt, and one of his incisors had left a dent in the pout of Sam’s lower lip. Dean stared at the shadow of concave skin, and he didn’t know how much time had passed, only that when Sam fluttered his lashes and Dean looked away, when he looked back that small mark of possession was gone. Dean wanted to leave permanent ones. 

“What….” Sam’s gaze was starry-eyed, he let go of one hand to touch it gingerly to his mouth. “Dean?” They were the same words from a moment ago, but like the world itself, irrevocably changed. 

“You’re in style, Sammy boy.” And Sam’s gaze settled on his mouth as he spoke. Dean licked his lips the way he knew the girls liked, broad swipe of tongue over lower lip, tip pressed into the corner as he lifted one side of his mouth in a cocky smirk. 

Sam just stared, so Dean leaned in again. Sam’s grip moved from his wrists to his ribs, and he could feel his little brother’s knuckles over his ribs as he held tight to his flannel. And that – that ghost of a touch, not Sam’s mouth under his, not the way he said his name – that was what made Dean sure he didn’t have to worry about the girls at school. Maybe never had.


	12. Prompt October 19: Sling

The break wasn’t clean. There were fragments littering the muscle and Sam’s jaw was clenched trying to find all of them. He knew he was shredding his brother to bits, the two radialis muscles were being pulled and pulled apart. But he had to be sure he didn’t miss any. Didn’t miss and make Dean worse. The oblique fracture ran across his radius, but luckily the bone was still held together, like two jagged puzzle pieces. But small chips had escaped and nestled into the surrounding muscle. 

Sam eyed the white fragments and tried not to think about what it would feel like to curl up there between the sinew and skin and never leave. 

His vision blurred. He tried to meet Dean’s eyes but they were closed, whiskey and pain drawing him towards sleep even as his teeth clenched tight around the sleeve of a flannel. He dug through Dean’s exposed flesh one more time, scanning carefully. If he missed any chips of porcelain white they could wreak havoc, or cause infection. Sam leaned back, positive of his handiwork. 

He stitched the wound closed and placed layers of bandage around Dean’s forearm. Ideally, it should be cast in plaster, but enough times around with the cloth and it would be stiff enough, and a rudimentary sling made from the strap of a duffel would have to do. To say they were running low on supplies was the understatement of the century.   
Sam shuffled Dean from the chair to the bed, and turned and met Dad’s gaze. 

“You were supposed to be gone, boy.” John said. His eyes were clear, and cold. 

“Just had to be sure you came back from this hunt. One last time.” He looked at Dean sprawled unconsciously on the bed, wanted to see those green eyes one more time. Couldn’t meet his father’s gaze as he pled, “Dad, please, I want to stay.”

“Get to school, son. And don’t fucking come back. This is an out, I want you to survive this.” John gestured around the room; there was dirt on the hems of the aged floral curtains, John’s boots were covered in blood and stood parallel to one another at the door, the keys to Baby sat on the table and their keyring was lonely and empty. This place wasn’t home, but Dean was. And Sam was leaving. For Stanford. He looked at his father, worn and lost. John nodded towards the salted doorway. It was as close to an _I love you_ as he would ever get.


	13. Prompt October 20: Tread

The tracks were apparent in the mud for a few weeks. It had rained that night, and they gouged deep scores into the mud. The tires set wide apart – an American classic. But the tread worn thin and snaking, more a memory of grooves than their actual presence. The tracks ended abruptly, like the wide hulking beast had slid into the lane, and pulled back out the way they came. 

Next to the tire marks were two sets of footprints, one from worn in sneakers, the other from work boots. The sneakers had gotten out of the passenger seat and wound around the front of the car, far apart like the legs they belonged to were long, heading towards the bus stop a few yards away. They went wide around the driver’s side, like the door was ajar. The work boots didn’t budge, one set of clean bootprints next to the driver’s side, body positioned towards the bus station, but they didn’t venture an inch, it didn’t make sense why the driver would get out at all. 

One other thing was sketched into that muddy laneway, and that was the sneakers returning, steps overtop of the tire tracks, after the car had gone. One palm mark pressed flat into the boot prints, fingers splayed wide into the grooves left from the sole of the shoe. Then they retreated again, back in the direction of the road. 

That last conversation, that last altercation – whatever it was – held firm in the mud as it dried, a story in grime and abandoned laneways. It wasn’t until the next big storm a few weeks later that the dirt became mud and squelched into a flat expanse again that the marks disappeared, all traces of the small story vanished, like it hadn’t existed at all.


	14. Prompt October 21: Treasure

“Keep it.” Dean said. Sam fondled the rock in his palm. Could see the quartz glisten on one side. He was sure it was worth a hundred dollars, a thousand maybe. 

He was eight. 

\--

He kept it until he was thirteen. He would have kept it a lot longer, if only he hadn’t lost it. 

In 1996 it fell in a parking lot when Sam went catatonic from seeing his seventeen-year-old brother kiss Stacy Lewinsky outside the cinema. Warm from his palm, it dropped with a thud on weed-cracked pavement and by the time Sam had realized it wasn’t safely in his hand he was a mile away. By the next day, it was gone. Although he could clearly see Dean’s face moving behind the curtain of Stacy’s hair seared behind his eyelids, he couldn’t remember exactly where he was standing. 

\-- 

“Keep it.” Sam said. Dean tested the weight of the blade in his palm. 

“Bring it, just in case.” Dean extended his hand, the knife shimmered in the light. Sam shook his head no. 

Dean was twenty-one. 

\--

He kept it until he died. He would have kept it a lot longer, if only he had survived. 

In 2007 it fell – alongside Dean – in some cookie cutter house with demons littering the area so dense the windows just shone black. Sam wished Dean would lie still, but he thrashed and writhed in agony. For the first time in a year, Sam wished it were over.

And then, it was. 

In Hell, Dean had new blades, but none fit in his palm quite right. He was flayed for ages before he screamed out enough with shattered vocal chords and skinless fingers. Although he could sometimes recall Sam’s gaze and Sam’s taunting smirk, the only thing seared behind his eyelids was blood, and as much as he wished otherwise, he always knew exactly where he was standing. 

\--

Sam went back to that lot, and there, like it was waiting, for a decade, was the stone. It glimmered faintly, and Sam knew it wouldn’t catch a pretty penny. Ruby smiled, and Sam thought of the curtain of hair, of Stacy, of Dean. He tucked it into his pocket, and felt heavier. 

\--

Dean woke to darkness and a lighter and blade in his pocket. He used one to see and the other to pry the plywood boards apart. He emerged from the dirt unscathed and new, covered in mud, like a mythical beast reborn. He eyed the small knife in his hand, and thought of a rainy motel night, of promises, of Sam. He tucked it into his pocket, and felt lighter.


	15. Prompt October 22: Ghost

Sam rested a hand on his brother’s shoulder, and Dean tensed from the contact. He shrugged Sam off and strode away, paced back and forth around the empty library, boots echoing in the bunker’s vastness, nothing left for the sound to hold onto. His boots were loud in the silence as Sam just stood there, eyes tracking his brother’s movements but doing nothing to reign in the distance between them. 

Sam just thought about the way that Dean felt under his palm, thrumming with energy, but cold, like pressing a hand to a warm window in the dead of winter when trapped outside, the blaze within an illusion against the frost on the pane. He tried not to think of how the roaring fire fed the chill and the sticky cold, the same way a warm tongue lured the ice on a pole to spread and latch on. Sam didn’t want to be that, didn’t want to be fighting for a way back in, didn’t want to hold onto Dean and force frostbite to bloom on his lips. 

Dean was staring. 

“It’s me,” Dean said. Like it was the easiest thing in the world. Like it was terror and fear of the deepest kind. “I’m the anchor.” Sam had stood by as he watched Dean burn everything. The clothes. The books….

Baby. 

Dean stood before him with nothing but an empty underground lair that was never supposed to be theirs, in army surplus sweats and hoodie, eyes damp, staring at a brother who wouldn’t pass on. Billie had shaken her head and said no, like nothing really mattered here, like these two souls didn’t save the world, didn’t give up everything. She had just said “not everything” in that smug tone of hers and vanished. 

“There’s nothing left, right? Nothing we’ve missed?” Dean asked, a final plea. He was ready to move on – he was – he just needed to be sure Sam would be there with him when he did. 

Sam took a few deep breaths and nodded, he could almost feel the stench of gasoline tickling his nose. The crunch of salt under his toes. Dean looked him dead in the eyes, he didn’t say anything, he didn’t have to. He lit the match.


	16. Prompt October 23: Ancient

Sam was six and Dean didn’t think they’d live past twenty. He tried to think about how Sam had lived a quarter of his life already and hadn’t even started school. Even for a kid as whip-smart as Dean, that was hard to fathom. But he stared in his baby brother’s eyes and couldn’t ever picture that face aging. “We’re gonna be ancient” Dean vowed, and it was another prayer he whispered every night: _look after Sammy, we’re gonna die old, keep a gun within arm’s reach, look after Sammy, look after Sammy, look after Sammy. _

\--

But there Sam lay, his body slowly expanding, lips purpling in the dim light of the shabby room. And _good god_, Dean had never been able to imagine Sam with wrinkles or smile lines or age spots, but he could imagine his baby brother like this. He imagined Sam like this a hundred thousand ways; and although Jake was a surprise, the wound and the death wasn’t. Sam’s skin was still clear and baby-faced, beard just starting to grow in, patchy at best. On his back like that Dean couldn’t even see the wound, just saw the dried auburn pool on the dingy mattress but forced his mind to forget where it had come from. 

Maybe Dean was never supposed to see Sam age, but maybe that didn’t mean Sam wouldn’t. Dean knew what he had to do. He made the deal.


End file.
